Blood thickens Japan's political waters
By Kosuke Takahashi
TOKYO - Considering the revolving door of prime ministers who keep resigning
after very short tenures, Japanese politics has long been viewed as mediocre at
best, both by those at home and abroad.
Why does political turmoil continue in Tokyo? The answer may be simple. Preppy
Japanese politicians fail to grasp the public mindset and have little knowledge
of the tasks people on the street most expect the government to fulfill. Also,
when times get tough, they spinelessly relinquish the reins of government. This
angers ordinary Japanese, who clearly cannot abandon their jobs and are forced
to tighten their belts.
Behind the dysfunctional politics of the world's second-largest
economy is a well-entrenched hereditary system.
A widening disparity between the haves and have-nots and an accumulated
discrepancy between society's winners and losers are aggravating the situation.
Tokyo now appears to be implementing the quasi-feudalism of the Edo Era
(1603-1867), defined by a social class determined by birth, lineage or family
wealth. The prospect of a return to this class-based system has more than a few
Japanese seriously worried.
In the fledgling administration of Prime Minister Taro Aso, hastily created
after his predecessor Yasuo Fukuda's abrupt resignation last month, 12 of the
18 ministers have fathers or grandfathers who were Diet (parliament) lawmakers.
They inherited a constituency by succession when their antecessors died or
retired from politics.
"Those hereditary politicians were born and grew up in a political family, and
after working for just a few years outside, they became successors," said
Yoshiaki Kobayashi, professor of political science at Keio University in Tokyo.
"They only knew the political world and do not know other worlds well, namely,
the suffering, hardships and wishes of our everyday life. Therefore, there
emerge some gaps between them and us."
Too many prime ministers
Even more noteworthy is that four ministers in the Aso administration had
fathers or grandfathers who were prime ministers. Aso himself is related to
seven former prime ministers, including his grandfather Shigeru Yoshida,
Japan's first post-war prime minister. New Foreign Minister Hirofumi Nakasone
is the eldest son of former premier Yasuhiro Nakasone, who was best known for
his close relationship with former United States president Ronald Reagan,
popularly called the "Ron-Yasu" friendship.
Kunio Hatoyama, the new minister of internal affairs and communications, is the
grandson of Ichiro Hatoyama, the first president of the ruling Liberal
Democratic Party (LDP) and three times prime minister between 1954 and 1956.
Yuko Obuchi, minister of state for the declining birthrate issue, is the second
daughter of late premier Keizo Obuchi, whom the New York Times nicknamed "Cold
Pizza".
The Aso administration is made of a who's who of celebrity families in Japan.
Additionally, the father of Fukuda and the grandfather of Shinzo Abe, Fukuda's
immediate predecessors were both former prime ministers. In fact, there are
simply too many high-profile hereditary politicians to list.
What this means is that without the strong political advantage provided by
famous family pedigrees, many Japanese politicians can no longer hope to become
a premier or a minister by scaling the ladder of career success. This is even
true within the ranks of the LDP.
Koizumi clan
Most recently, even popular former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi, 66, a
symbol of Japan's reformist policy and a third-generation lawmaker, named his
second-eldest son, Shinjiro, 27, to run in his constituency after he expressed
his intention last week to retire from politics once his current term in the
Lower House ends. The national election is expected to be held in coming
months.
Through the privatization of postal services, his highest priority during his
term of office, Koizumi succeeded in eradicating postmasters who enjoyed
hereditary succession to their positions. In contrast, he maintained Japan's
traditional politics of inheritance by preserving his constituency for his son.
According to the Institute for Mass Communication and Public Opinion, a
Tokyo-based research institute, 38.5% of the politicians in the Lower House
were hereditary politicians as of 2005. The ratio of hereditary politicians
accounted for 51.6% of the LDP and 27.3% of the main opposition Democratic
Party of Japan (DPJ). The re-election rate for candidate exceeded a staggering
90% in the 2003 Lower House election, the institute said.
"The number of hereditary politicians has increased through recent Lower House
elections," said Satoko Tadokoro, a spokeswoman at the institute. "For them,
the hereditary transfer of their own constituency should be very convenient to
defend their vested interests."
One of the major reasons why hereditary politicians are rampant lies in the
Lower House election system which combines 300 small, single-seat districts
with 180 proportional representation seats from 11 regional blocs around the
nation. Japan modeled this after the United Kingdom's electoral system and has
used it since 1996, replacing the old system of electing Diet members from
medium-sized districts.
The old system was abolished because it usually led to two or more candidates
from the same party running in the same constituency. The candidates therefore
campaigned with more stress on pork-barrel politics, benefiting local interests
or particular industries rather than on the basic policies of their parties.
Although the UK prohibited the practice of inheriting a constituency from one's
father, grandfather or other blood relative by party discipline, Japan did not.
Under this system, second- or third-generation politicians, especially in the
ruling LDP, easily inherit what the Japanese call the "three bans" from
constituents: jiban (electoral power base), kanban (name
recognition) and kaban (political donations). Japan has lacked the
concept of fairness providing anybody with equality of opportunity to run for
elections on a level playing field.
Keio University's Kobayashi pointed out that prefectural assembly members of
the same clan play a central role in deciding the succession in collaboration
with the candidate's family.
Faced with a lack of the "three bans", the opposition DPJ has adopted an open
application system to attract talented candidates and add credibility to the
party. This is one of the major reasons why the DPJ has strengthened its
position in the Diet and is threatening the LDP's half century of dominance as
the governing party.
"Frankly, as long as we cherish hereditary politicians, we cannot put up
candidates as good as the DPJ," Chuichi Date, a ruling LDP Upper House member
with a 23-year political career, told Asia Times Online. "We need to change
it."
A gap-widening society
Post-World War II Japan has been described by experts as a 90% middle class
society. But recent data show a widening income gap. The number of employees
earning an annual wage of 2 million yen (US$19,000) or less was 10.3 million in
2007, or about one out of every four workers. This number is up 21% from 2002,
while those earning more than 10 million yen ($95,000) stood at 2.33 million,
up 7%, according to statistics released last month by the National Tax Agency.
Wealth and privilege need not be political handicaps. In the United States, the
Kennedy, Rockefeller and Bush families, among others, have proved that.
Politicians born with silk stockings and silver spoons, if truly talented, can
run and win in different constituencies from their parents and grandparents.
But in Japan, there are hardly any first-generation politicians such as US
Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama or his Republican rival,
Senator John McCain.
Kosuke Takahashi, a former staff writer at the Asahi Shimbun, is a
freelance correspondent based in Tokyo. He can be contacted at letters@kosuke.net.
(Copyright 2008 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us about
sales, syndication and
republishing.)
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
